Boyle v. State

170 N.E.2d 802, 241 Ind. 565, 1960 Ind. LEXIS 169
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 9, 1960
Docket29,782
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 170 N.E.2d 802 (Boyle v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boyle v. State, 170 N.E.2d 802, 241 Ind. 565, 1960 Ind. LEXIS 169 (Ind. 1960).

Opinions

Bobbitt, C. J.

Landis, J., has heretofore disqualified himself in this case.

Bobbitt, C. J., and Jackson, J., are of the opinion that the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and the appellant granted a new trial, while Arterburn and Achor, JJ., are of the opinion that the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

The four judges participating being equally divided at the last term of court and being still equally divided at this term, the j udgment of the trial court is affirmed, without costs. Acts 1881 (Spec. Sess.), ch. 38, §654, p. 240, being §2-3232, Burns’ 1946 Replacement. State ex rel. Thomas v. Williams (1958), 238 Ind. 407, 151 N. E. 2d 499.

[566]*566Separate opinions covering material points in the case arising from the record follow.

SEPARATE OPINION

Appellant was charged by affidavit with having driven and operated an automobile upon United States Highway No. 41 in Sullivan County, Indiana, on December 21, 1956, “while under the influence of intoxicating liquor,” under Acts 1939, ch. 48, §52, p. 289, being §47-2001, Burns’ 1952 Replacement, tried by jury, found guilty as charged and fined in the sum of $100.

We are confronted at the outset with appellant’s assignment of error No. 1, “The court erred in finding against the defendant [appellant herein] on his plea in bar by reason of former jeopardy.”

Such plea in bar, omitting formal parts, is as follows:

“Comes now, Paul P. Boyle, Defendant and moves the Court that the defendant be found not guilty for the reason that on April 29, 1957, said defendant was tried in the City Court of Terre Haute, Indiana before Hon. John Hoke Beasley, special judge, on the identical charge herein and was found not guilty, the only difference in the affidavits being that in this affidavit, defendant is charged with operating a motor vehicle in Sullivan County, Indiana while in the case tried in the City Court of Terre Haute, Indiana in Vigo County, Indiana, he was charged with operating a motor vehicle in Vigo County, Indiana; that the offense of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor is an indivisible offense; that a citizen of this state cannot be tried in more than one county for the identical offense with which he has been charged and acquitted in another county.”

Appellant was charged by one affidavit, in the Terre Haute City Court (Vigo Gounty), with driving under [567]*567the influence of intoxicating liquor1 on December 21, 1956; and by another affidavit in two counts, one charging him with leaving the scene of a personal injury accident,2 and the other with leaving the scene of a property damage accident.3 These affidavits were prepared by the deputy prosecuting attorney of Vigo County, signed by a sergeant of the Indiana State Police, and filed in Vigo County on December 22, 1956.

Appellant was tried in the City Court of Terre Haute, Vigo County, Indiana, beginning on April 24, 1957, on all three charges. He was found not guilty of driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and leaving the scene of a personal injury, and found guilty of leaving the scene of the accident wherein property damage was done.

The affidavit charging appellant with driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor on December 21, 1956, in Sullivan County, and which is the basis of this appeal, was signed by a State police officer on April 26, 1957, and subsequently filed in the Sullivan Circuit Court.

The record of the hearing on the plea in bar discloses the following evidence which was adduced at the trial in Terre Haute.

At about 7:45 p.m. on December 21, 1956, Ned Woodward, a State police officer, received a radio call from the State Police Post at Terre Haute, Indiana, to be on the lookout for a two-tone brown sedan, an Oldsmobile or Buick, which was involved in a hit-and-run accident on United States Highway No. 41 just south of Terre [568]*568Haute, Indiana, and a “little later” the car was identified by radio as being a “brown 1956 Buick dragging a piece of chrome.”

A road block was set up on United States Highway No. 41 at the “north edge of Sullivan.” About 15 or 20 minutes later appellant drove into Sullivan on United States Highway No. 41 in a blue and pink Buick with a “piece of metal hanging from the right rear fender.” He was first stopped by a city policeman, Gerald Skinner, who had received a radio call from the Sullivan County sheriff’s office to intercept the car described in the State police radio message received by officer Woodward. Officer Skinner placed appellant under arrest for leaving the scene of an accident and about “a minute later” appellant was again arrested by officer Woodward for leaving the scene of an accident.

Officer Woodward testified, as a witness for defendant-appellant, that appellant told him at the time of his arrest in Sullivan that he had “driven from Terre Haute by himself.”

Officer Skinner, as a witness for defendant-appellant, also testified that when arrested appellant said, “What have I done?” and he (Skinner) replied, “Leaving the scene of an accident, hitting a State Trooper who was supposed to have been a State Trooper up at Terre Haute.” This witness further testified that he was certain when he arrested appellant that he had the car for which the pick-up order was issued by the State Police Post in Terre Haute, and that he arrested appellant on information received over the police radio. Officer Skinner also testified that appellant was driving “alone in the middle of U. S. 41” and was “under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and was intoxicated” when he got out of his car at the time of his arrest in Sullivan.

[569]*569Burel Huff, a police officer of the City of Sullivan, who was with officer Skinner at the time of appellant’s arrest in Sullivan, testified substantially as did officer Skinner.

Harold Roseberry testified that appellant was under the influence of intoxicating liquor when he saw him in front of his home in Sullivan at approximately 8:30 p.m. on December 21, 1956, and later at the sheriff’s office in the Sullivan County jail, and further that he saw appellant when he was taken back to Vigo County, and that he was under the influence of intoxicating liquor then.

Witnesses Skinner, Woodward and Huff all testified at the hearing on the plea in bar that the testimony which they would give, if called to testify in appellant’s trial at Sullivan where he was about to be tried on the affidavit filed against him in Sullivan County on April 27, 1957, would be the same as that which they gave at appellant’s trial in the City Court in Terre Haute where he was tried on April 24th and 25th, 1957, and found not guilty of operating while under the influence on December 21, 1956. However, Skinner and Woodward testified, when recalled to testify as witnesses for the State at the hearing on the plea in bar, that they would have additional evidence to present in the trial in Sullivan which they were not allowed to present in the trial at Terre Haute.

Robert Brown, a deputy prosecuting attorney of Vigo County, testified at the hearing on the plea in bar as a witness for defendant-appellant, in part, as follows:

“Q.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Maine v. Thomas G. Coffill III
2026 ME 18 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 2026)
Kindred v. State
540 N.E.2d 1161 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1989)
Hallman v. State
492 So. 2d 1136 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1986)
People v. Dillingham
249 N.E.2d 294 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1969)
Boyle v. State
170 N.E.2d 802 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1960)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
170 N.E.2d 802, 241 Ind. 565, 1960 Ind. LEXIS 169, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boyle-v-state-ind-1960.